Mighty Aphrodite (1995)
Directed by Woody Allen

Film Review

If he had been around in Greece two a half millennia ago, Woody Allen would no doubt have given Aristophanes, the ancient world's chief histrionic funster, a good run for his money. Modern cinema no doubt owes a great debt to Greek tragedy and comedy (the old plots are still being reworked), and Allen goes out of his way to make this explicit in Mighty Aphrodite, making the connections with all the understated subtlety of an inebriated giraffe in a phosphorescent green jumpsuit roller-skating its merry way down the Golden Gate Bridge.  'Oh, look, here's a deus ex machina', Allen observes as a helicopter drops out of the sky to happily resolve a plot that has by now run out of steam.  Less pardonably, Allen then cannot resist milking the film's ironic ending for all it is worth.  Short of throwing up a flashing neon banner with the words 'THIS FOLKS IS IRONY' emblazoned across it at the crucial moment, there's not much else the writer-director could have done to patronise his faithful clientele.

And then there's the constantly wailing Greek chorus which crops up like the ghost of Banquo about once every ten minutes to remind us, as if the endless allusions to Oedipus Rex and such like were not enough proof of its writer's erudition, that Mighty Aphrodite is Allen's attempt at a full-on homage to Greek theatre.   It's a film with glib pseudo-intellectual self-indulgence stamped all over it, but then subtlety, modesty and self-restraint were never Woody Allen's strongest suits.  Given the film's forced, over-layered erudition and almost total lack of an original premise, it's surprising that it managed to be half as popular with audiences as it was.

Mighty Aphrodite is a long way from being Allen's greatest film. Apart from the witty references to Antigone and her happy, overly made-up entourage of sad instruments of Fate  most of the humour is crude and repetitive.  The film does however have one stupendous ace up its sleeve, which is the magnificent Mira Sorvino, here turning in an Oscar-winning performance that is likely to go down as the high point of her career.  As the ditsy but loveable dim prostitute Sorvino is both hilarious (without even looking as if she is trying to be funny) and heartbreaking, surely one of the most authentic of Allen's many warped character creations, certainly the most memorable.  It is regrettable that by now Allen is looking too long in the tooth to be convincing as a naive do-gooder and guileless romantic, and even Helena Bonham Carter fails to make much of an impression, thanklessly miscast in an underwritten archetypal part that, frankly, is beneath her.  Even Claire Bloom gets short shrift (surely a capital offence if the film had been made in England) - blink and you miss her.

With no one half as good in sight, Mira Sorvino has an easy job stealing the film hook, line and sinker - not too difficult as she gets all the best gags and is the only character that the film's author seems to have any feeling for and bothered to turn into a fully rounded and likeable individual.  Coming in the wake of such sublime works as Shadows and Fog (1991) and Husbands and Wives (1992), Mighty Aphrodite can't help feeling lightweight and a tad uninspired, but it marks a decisive return to the lighter vein of Allen's earlier comedies and plays to its writer's strengths as a canny observer of human affairs, especially that particular flaw to which all humankind is prone: our inability to take control of our own destinies. You don't need a Greek chorus to tell you that life is a muddle. A Woody Allen film will do the job just as well, and with far less make-up.

Film Synopsis

Lenny Weinrib is a Manhattan sportswriter who is happily married to Amanda, a career-minded art gallery curator.  Over dinner one evening, Amanda admits to wanting to have a child of her own but is unwilling to give up work and so raises the possibility of adoption.  Lenny is dead against the idea but is won round when Amanda presents him with an adorable little boy.  Convinced that his adopted son is a budding genius, Lenny becomes obsessed with finding out the identity of his mother and finally discovers that she is a young and highly attractive prostitute who now goes by the name Linda.  At first Linda  mistakes Lenny for a client and clams up when he begins probing her painful past.  Eventually, Lenny succeeds in gaining Linda's confidence and decides to take her in hand to improve her life and get her out of the prostitution racket.  So preoccupied is Lenny with sorting out Linda's problems, which include finding a suitable life partner, that he neglects his own wife.  Inevitably, it isn't long before Amanda begins an affair with another man...